Murdoch Taps Post Editor to Launch News Corp. Digital Newspaper

Rupert Murdoch will launch an exclusively digital news operation aimed at attracting subscribers on tablet readers before the end of the year, according to theLos Angeles Times.

“We’ll have young people reading newspapers,” said Mr. Murdoch when teasing the project in an August 4 earnings call.

The digital newspaper may rely on the work of News Corp. employees — Post and Wall Street Journal reporters, for example — but the LA Times suggests that Mr. Murdoch might also invest millions to staff up the project with a dedicated team. New York Post managing editor Jesse Angelo will run the launch.

Post editor-in-chief Col Allan told The Observer in 2007 that Mr. Angelo will be successful no matter what he does. “The instincts that he has, and the leadership abilities he has, make him uniquely able to be a terrific newspaper executive,” said Mr. Allan.

Mr. Angelo cut his teeth under Mr. Allan at Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. He also went to kindergarten with Mr. Murdoch’s son James at the Trinity School. Mr. Angelo began at the Post as a freelancer for Page Six in 1999.

Earlier this summer Mr. Murdoch purchased Skiff, a cross-platform publisher for e-readers developed by Hearst, and installed Jon Housman, a former McKinsey consultant, as News Corp.’s first president of digital journalism initiatives.